. >>> and president obama and house speaker john boehner are talking again. but that is about the only thing close to progress in efforts to avoid the fiscal cliff. president obama used his weekly address insisting he is ready to make the tough decisions on spending cuts. >> i am willing to make more entitlement spending cuts on top of the one trillion in spending cuts i signed into law last year. but if we're serious about reducing our deficit while still investing in things like education and research that are important to growing our economy, and if we're serious about protecting middle class families then we're also going to have to ask the wealthiest americans to pay higher tax rates. that is one principle i wouldn't compromise on. >> speaker john boehner has a different view. he says the president needs to abandon what he called his "my way or the highway approach," in his words. if the president does that a lot of things are possible. >>> syrian rebels are battling army units around the capital. activists say 26 people were killed in the damascus subur